This painting, once

I knew this painting once

I knew its brush strokes

and colors

its subject and theme,

its history,

its statement (bold)

(insistent) (demanding)

I knew this painting once

hanging in its predestined place

accepting the somber stares

it was owed (tears)

I no longer know this painting.

I sit in a graveyard

my back to the sun

and talk to inscriptions

on the stones.

Photograph: Abstract Gravestones by John Luty via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.